Over the years many wearable supports for assisting a person carrying a load have been developed. For example, tramping back packs have been developed with sophisticated frame harnesses, and strap arrangements, to allow for more items and heavier loads to be carried more comfortably by a single person.
Wearable supports are also often attached to devices such as vacuum cleaning apparatus to allow this to be worn rather than dragged behind a person to increase the ease and efficiency of the vacuuming operation.
As can be seen from the above two examples wearable supports have been developed over the years to allow for various objects to be carried on the back of a person rather than them having to transport the objects separately by pushing, pulling, or carrying the objects in their arms.
To remove some of the load from the shoulders of the wearer many wearable supports feature a waist belt which transfers a portion of the load onto the user's waist or hips.
However, despite the advances that have been made in wearable supports to date, there still exists a need for a wearable support which can enable a load, from one or more objects, to be carried on a person's back in a manner which allows the person's torso a greater freedom of movement.
US 2005/0082330 discloses a pack support which is designed to give a person a greater degree of unrestricted movement. The pack has shoulder straps and a waist belt. However, whilst this pack achieves greater freedom of movement, it does so at a cost, namely; having to break a frictional connection between the pack and the waist belt, which then, as a consequence, places a greater strain upon a user's shoulders and spine.
US 2008/0035686 is concerned with a backpack having a pivot system between a waist belt and a frame which supports one or more packs (bags). Again this system is concerned with user comfort and providing a mechanism to provide a backpack wearer with a greater degree of flexibility. This pivot system allows for a person to flex in the coronal plane by virtue of pivot axis 210 as shown for example in FIG. 4b. However, it does not allow a person to flex in the sagittal plane.
Moreover, neither system provides an ideal solution to reducing the strain on a person's back whilst maintaining a reasonable degree of flexibility.
There is also a need for a wearable support which can carry items in a manner wherein at least a portion of the load is carried adjacent a person's centre of mass. In particular, a wearable support which is capable of carrying the heaviest parts of a load adjacent to a person's centre of mass would be useful.
It would also be useful if there could be provided a wearable support which is configured to support one or more modules in a manner which enables a module to pivot about a lateral axis.
It is an object of the present invention to address the foregoing problems or at least to provide the public with a useful choice.
All references, including any patents or patent applications cited in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference. No admission is made that any reference constitutes prior art. The discussion of the references states what their authors assert, and the applicants reserve the right to challenge the accuracy and pertinency of the cited documents. It will be clearly understood that, although a number of prior art publications are referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that any of these documents form part of the common general knowledge in the art, in New Zealand or in any other country.
Throughout this specification, the word “comprise”, or variations thereof such as “comprises” or “comprising”, will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.
Further aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the ensuing description which is given by way of example only.